


Darcy and the Soldier

by sleepless_raccoon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Inspired by Beauty and the Beast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepless_raccoon/pseuds/sleepless_raccoon
Summary: Bucky hides away in the middle of nowhere to escape the consequences of a bitter witch's curse. Turns out, "middle of nowhere" is code for "perfect place for research" in astrophysicist's speak.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I did a thing. What can I say? I am fangirl/fairy tale loving trash.

Nothing was unusual or special about the day that it happened. Bucky had walked down to the farmer’s market every week for two months before she approached him. She wasn’t dressed in all black, or wearing a pointed hat, but the woman who cornered him at the fringe of the market told him she was a witch, and that she had a special curse just for him. He wondered who she’d loved, who he’d killed. He didn’t ask.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” she said. “I have prepared a special curse just for you.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Bucky said reflexively. Oh, really? scoffed a voice in his head. That wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’ve come across by a long shot.

Bucky told the voice to shut up and focused back on the young woman, who was speaking again.

“You stole my past from me,” she said, “so I will steal your future from you. No one that you meet will see you as you appear; they will see you as you see yourself, as the monster you truly are. Only when someone can look past the spell will the spell be broken.”

“How can anyone look past the spell before it breaks?” he asked.

She bared her teeth at him, and he half expected them to be sharp like fangs. “If it was easy, Soldat,” she said, spitting the name at him like a dirty word, “it wouldn’t be a curse.”

Well, Bucky supposed that was true enough.

 

The Asset…Bucky knew that he had once been a real man. A man with feelings, who made decisions, and loved people. There had even been people that loved him. Was that what Steve’s people saw when they looked at him? Because all he saw in the mirror was a monster. When he could make himself look in the mirror, that is.

Steve couldn’t see it. The spell only worked on anyone who’d never met him before. Steve looked at the monster that was the Asset, the Winter Soldier, the Hydra killing machine for decades, and still somehow saw his best friend. His childhood buddy. Even now, when the curse caused anyone who had never met him before to recoil in horror at the monstrous appearance he presented, Steve just saw Bucky.

Living in the world, however, instead of cryostasis meant that Steve wasn’t the only person Bucky ever saw, and even though he’d met most of the Avengers and their partners before the curse was laid on him, there were still a few he’d never met, and civilians were terrified of him on sight. Bucky needed to get away.

 

“Tony has a cabin up in Canada,” Steve said. “It’s pretty isolated, but not so far from the new facility that I can’t make it to you regularly to drop off supplies and visit.”

He looked so hopeful, Bucky didn’t say anything to negate the promise of visits. Probably he would be grateful for the company. Maybe. Most days it was still easier to be alone, to not have anything distracting and confusing him outside of the voices in his own head. Especially now that he was met with horror anywhere he went beyond their apartment. Then again, Sam said that isolation was the worst thing for his recovery.

Then again, Sam was an asshole.

(Then again, didn’t Bucky deserve for people to be assholes to him?)

He was very careful never to voice thoughts like that around Steve, but he couldn’t help thinking them.

Instead, he said, “Tony is willing to let the assassin who murdered his parents stay at his cabin?”

Steve tried, but he couldn’t hide his wince. “Things with Tony are…better, since we hid in Wakanda. And…he’s trying. It helps that this way he knows he’ll never see you,” he admitted, and Bucky nodded. That made sense. Really, at this point, it was better if no one saw him, all things considered.

“What about security?” he asked.

“The property is completely off the books; no one knows about it except Pepper, Tony, and the local man they pay to do maintenance. You can do your own reconnaissance, of course, before you move, and bring your own weapons, make your own changes to the security system while you’re there; Tony won’t touch it,” Steve assured him.

Bucky nodded slowly. “When can we go?” he asked.

 

He was moved in by the end of the week. Turned out, Bucky did hate the isolation, but it wasn’t like Steve was free to stay with him. He still had a job to do, and his welcome back to the western world was contingent on him doing that job. People started missing Captain America (and the rest of the Avengers) and regretting the Accords pretty much as soon as a problem arose that the local law enforcement couldn’t handle. Superheroes were suddenly not as dangerous as they’d believed mere months ago, and the people wanted them back.

So Bucky was alone. Until Steve could sneak away to resupply him, and maybe even stay for a few days. He wouldn’t run out of food for weeks, though, longer if he reduced himself to the kind of rations Hydra sometimes kept him on. There wasn’t much to do out in the middle of nowhere, all by himself, beyond read the books Steve’d loaded onto his kindle, and keep his weapons cleaned, oiled, and sharp. Very, very sharp.

Bucky liked to read, and he’d been on his own for a long time, but never so completely isolated. He’d at least gone to the markets, sat in coffee shops and libraries, been around other humans while they went about their day and interacted. Here, there was silence, unless he turned on the little music player Steve had left him. Sam had been after him to get therapy of some sort, but Bucky had put him off, stating that with all his triggers taken care of and extracted, there was no need for a shrink to go poking around in his head. Now, anyone he tried to talk to would be too horrified to conduct any sort of therapy. Hell, they would be the ones needing therapy.

Bucky lost track of time wandering around the Canadian wilderness, reading novels, history texts, science articles, and news magazines, cleaning and re-cleaning his guns and knives, performing the most exhaustive training regimes he could remember or devise, and making a game out of his meals by guessing at the contents of each can with his eyes closed. The weeks between Steve’s visits stretched out in long, lonely sections of time he couldn’t have accounted for if asked. His nightmares grew worse and worse the longer he was alone, but no matter how he wracked his brain, he couldn’t find any way around the witch’s curse – and neither could anyone else Steve talked to. Bucky didn’t know how to force someone to spend enough time with him to “see past the monster” short of kidnapping, and that didn’t appeal to him in the slightest.

Steve tried to visit more often as Bucky’s condition deteriorated, and even resorted to sending Sam out in his place when he got stuck away for more than a week, but it simply wasn’t enough. Bucky had always been a people person, and he was shriveling away here on his own. It was a new and different and terrible kind of prison, one he couldn’t break out of.

And then one day Bucky woke up, and he wasn’t alone.


	2. Chapter Two

“Ouch! Jane, I told you, this box is heavy, and if you jam it into my ribs one more time, I’m gonna drop it on your tiny foot!”

“Stop being so dramatic, Darcy, and we can set it down over there.”

“Over where, Jane? I can’t see you pointing with this giant heavy box between us.”

A loud sigh, followed by an even louder thump, told Bucky they’d set down – or dropped – whatever it was they were carrying. He crept closer, silently, one hand holding his favorite pistol with a silencer attached and the other brandishing a long knife. If they were Hydra agents, there were the worst ones he’d ever encountered – which might mean they were the best he’d ever faced. They could be the decoys, or they could simply be drawing him out.

It was working.

Bucky paused at the corner to listen to the two women bicker about “placement” and “equipment” and “I still don’t understand why your ripped alien god boyfriend couldn’t be here lifting all the heavy stuff for us,” which confused him more than anything else he’d heard so far. He peeked around the corner and saw two small brunette women surrounded by a mess of boxes in what had previously been an office with a desk, a chair, and an empty bookshelf. The bookshelf was now filled with smaller boxes and pieces of equipment that looked like somethings out of the science fiction stories Bucky used to read as a kid.

One of the women was petite, almost waif like with her big eyes and loose clothing, but the other one was curvy and a little disheveled, her thick dark hair sticking out from under a knit watch cap and wearing so many layers he was surprised she could still bend her elbows.

Bucky couldn’t see or hear anyone else in the cabin, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. He snuck away from the office and prowled through the rest of the house, then the outlying area. No one else was around.

Bucky puzzled over this as he crept back inside, noting the pile of boxes still in the back of the moving truck parked in the driveway. He could hear their voices carrying down the hall as he approached the office again, still with the good natured arguing about boxes and their contents and the placement thereof. At this point, he was pretty sure they weren’t Hydra, but that left him confused about who they were. Two women showing up unannounced at his remote, isolated, unknown location…Bucky found it equally difficult to believe that these women could be a threat, and that they weren’t a threat, just by their sudden and unexpected arrival at his sanctuary.

He lurked outside the office listening to them argue and move things about, but didn’t realize that their voices were moving towards him for the purpose of leaving the room in time to move away from the door and hide.

“Holy shitballs!” the curvy one yelled when she walked out and saw him standing there. “Janie, run!” she shouted, reaching behind her to wave her hand at the smaller woman. She then lowered her shoulder and charged at him, attempting to tackle him. He grunted at the impact but didn’t waver, and when she attempted to knee him in the crotch he grabbed her arms and held her away from his body in a firm grip.

The other woman reappeared holding…that was a taser. Bucky was about to be tased, unless he reacted to them as though they were a threat and took them out. Based on their reactions to his appearance, these were 100% civilian women, and Bucky didn’t want to hurt them if it wasn’t necessary.

Bucky had never wanted to hurt anyone if it wasn’t necessary. Beating up bullies in back allies to save Steve’s scrawny stubborn ass was one thing, but the war…and all the terrible things Hydra had forced him to do…

By the time Bucky had decided he wasn’t going to defend himself, all he had time for was shoving the woman in his grip away from him before he took the hit. It hurt, but not like the Chair used to, and it dropped him to his knees with a groan, but he didn’t lose consciousness or his balance.

The tiny woman tased him again. Bucky gritted his teeth and fought to stay in the present, not to have a flashback, fought to remind himself that he was not in the Chair, that this was not a Hydra attack, that these women were probably frightened and had no idea who he was or what being electrocuted would mean to him – and frankly, if they did know who he was and what he’d done, they should still be afraid of him. Bucky was a monster.

Which is what they saw, he reminded himself. They saw him for what he truly was, these civilians who’d never met him before.

When Bucky started to leak tears and spots appeared in his vision, the curvy one said “That’s enough, Jane.” The voltage stopped, and Bucky sagged with relief. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking and crying, however.

“Bring me the duct tape, Jane,” she said, holding out a hand for the taser. Jane handed her the weapon and disappeared into the office, reappearing with a roll of grey tape that she traded to the woman in charge for the taser. Bucky allowed her to pull his arms behind him – she paused when she felt his metal arm, but only for a minute – and tape together his wrists. He could easily pull free of the restraints, but first he needed to get his tear ducts under control and find out who these ladies were and why they were at his isolated, supposedly unknown hideaway looking like they planned to move in.

When he was no longer shaking or crying, Bucky took a deep, shuddering breath and asked, “Who are you, and why are you here?”

Jane frowned. “Why are you here? Who are you? We’re supposed to be here. I arranged with Tony to use this place for my research months ago, and he didn’t say anything about anyone living nearby.”

“I don’t live nearby,” Bucky told her, “I live here. Tony let me stay here after…after. Steve arranged it with him. He didn’t say anything about anyone else even knowing that this place exists, much less that I should expect housemates to move in.”

“Jane, I think we just tased Bucky Barnes,” the darker haired woman whispered. “Crap crap crap, dude, please don’t tell Captain America on us, I am powerless against those sad puppy eyes,” she said, moving forward into his field of vision.

Jane frowned. “What? Darcy, how can you fall for Steve’s puppy eyes, but not mine? I’m so much prettier,” she complained.

Darcy flipped a hand back and forth as if to dismiss her complaint. “I’ve had way more practice on you, Janie,” she said. “Plus, usually when you try to use that trick you’re so tired and smelly that all I can focus on is getting you to sleep and shower, and not necessarily in that order.” She focused back on Bucky. “So, I’m pretty sure you’ve got a metal arm – which, dude, wicked cool, but also sorry, Hydra sucks – but, uh, you don’t…you don’t look like Bucky Barnes. So I’m gonna need a little more convincing before I untape you.”

Bucky scowled at her. He considered telling her that the tape wouldn’t hold him if he decided they were a threat, but held his tongue. Finally, he just told the truth. “I’m here because anyone who meets me sees me for what I truly am, the monster Hydra made and set loose on the world for the past several decades. Steve arranged with Tony Stark for me to live here until he finds a solution or a…counter curse.”

Darcy scrunched her nose up. “A counter curse? So this…the monstrous appearance thing…it’s a curse? Like, magic? Like a witch cursed you with magic?”

Jane heaved a sigh. “Darcy, how many times do I have to say it: magic is just science –“ 

“Science that we don’t understand yet,” Darcy finished for her, “I know, Jane. Let the hairy dude speak.”

Hairy? He looked hairy? Was it just his regular hair and scruff she was seeing, or was that part of the curse? Bucky shook his head to clear the useless curiosity and answered, “Yes, I was cursed by a witch. We can’t figure out how to undo it, and until we do, I’m stuck here, where I can’t scare people.”

Jane snorted, and Darcy snickered. “Yeah, how’s that working out for you?” she asked sarcastically. “Cause you scared the shit out of us.”

Bucky shrugged, ignoring the way it pulled at his wrists. “Like I said, this place was supposed to be off grid and abandoned. I haven’t seen another person besides Steve since I got here.”

“When was that?” Darcy asked, moving behind him to remove the tape.

“Eight months,” he told her, and flexed his vibranium arm to recalibrate the plates.

“Whoa,” she said. She stepped in front of him and offered a hand to help him stand. Bucky just stared at it while she continued, “I think I’d go crazy all by myself for eight days, let alone weeks or months. That’s rough, dude.”

Bucky was still staring at her hand like it was a green tentacle, and she wiggled it a little as though concerned he hadn’t seen it. When was the last time another person had touched him, without the intent to harm? Steve usually hugged him when he arrived and departed, but he was the only person Bucky had had contact with for a long while, and Steve wasn’t fooled by the witch’s curse; he still saw Bucky Barnes, his friend from back home. This woman had just met him, saw him as a monster, and was offering to hold his hand?

And she was growing impatient, if her huffy sigh and increased wiggling of said appendage were any indication. Bucky tentatively placed his hand in hers and stood, assessing the strange sensation of her delicate fingers clasping his, the warmth of her soft skin, the total lack of fear in her expression. He was so distracted he forgot to let go, until she squeezed him and then opened her palm, indicating that it was past time to release her.

“Sorry,” he said, and flexed his hand open and stepped back to quickly she almost looked off balance.

“No worries,” she assured him, and pulled the taser from her back pocket. If she noticed the way Bucky flinched, she ignored it, and handed the weapon to Jane. “Thanks, Jane,” she said, “but next time we’re worried about an intruder, do what you’re supposed to: hide and call for help.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh, crap,” she said. “I did. I hit my panic button. Where’s the phone? We’ve got to call and cancel the alarm before they send someone – or worse, tell Heimdall.”

Darcy laughed and pulled a phone from her pocket, punching something in with lightning speed. Not even a minute passed before the screen lit up with a call, and she answered with “Yo, false alarm, please and thank you do not send the cavalry.”

“How’s your brother feeling these days?” the voice on the other end asked.

“He’s great,” she said, “standing right here, in fact, if you’d like to talk to him.” She handed the phone to Jane, who took it and said “Alpha pi three thousand beta fish cactus.”

When the appropriate safe words had been exchanged, Darcy hung up the phone and tucked it away again. She eyed Bucky up and down and cocked her head. “So,” she said, “how do you feel about physical labor? Because all of Jane’s equipment is stupid heavy and I have a very specific list of activities I like to get sweaty for, and moving boxes isn’t on there.”

Bucky was startled into a laugh. It sounded hoarse and rusty, but it felt good. He’d move a few boxes for the woman who could draw that out of him.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might suck, but I'm sick of looking at it.

What felt like hours later, Bucky finally set the last box on the ground in the office they’d commandeered for a lab. He’d endured far worse in his drawn out decades of life, but eyeing the small women, he couldn’t help wondering aloud “How on earth were you two planning to bring all that inside by yourselves?”

“We weren’t,” Jane answered, without looking away from the machine she was calibrating.

“We planned to call Steve once we got all the manageable stuff inside,” Darcy explained. “Since Thor’s gone right now, and we’re not sure when he’ll be back.”

Jane’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing. Bucky had never met the Norse god of thunder, but he’d heard about him from Steve, and knew he had a relationship with the scientist. He wondered how often they saw each other, when one was an internationally lauded scientist and the other was heir to the throne of a faraway planet. Made most regular human relationship problems seem kind of…petty.

He made sure they didn’t need anything else from him and withdrew, exhausted by the interaction. Darcy never seemed to stop talking, keeping up a stream of chatter that Jane seemed to mostly tune out, but that Bucky felt obliged to listen to. Truthfully, he didn’t mind; she was entertaining, and he liked the novelty of having another person around, of hearing a voice that wasn’t his or a prerecorded audio file. Plus, she was funny; he’d smiled more spending the afternoon with her than in all the past months combined. But he still needed a break.

 

He slept poorly that night. Memories of all the things his handlers had done to him over the years to ensure compliance – electrocuting him, what they now called “waterboarding,” basic beatings, IV infusions that made him feel like his insides were on fire or left him paralyzed, unable to breath…the Chair. He slept fitfully, reliving his worst experiences in nightmares that twisted and combined horrors he’d experienced with those he’d perpetrated, until one of his dreams ended with blood all over his hands and Jane and Darcy’s lifeless bodies lying gutted on the ground.

Bucky woke with a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob and sat up and cradled his head in his hands. He wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night. He threw off the sweat soaked covers and padded to the bathroom for a quick wash, then dressed and crept silently to the kitchen for something to eat. Normally he might try to drown out the memories and flashbacks with a run around the property, but with the two women who had recently featured in his nightmare sleeping nearby, he wanted to stay close and reassure himself that they were safe – and that he hadn’t imagined their arrival the day before.

He carried his protein bar and water bottle down the hall and paused outside their rooms to listen for them, letting out a little sigh of relief when his enhanced ears could hear the faint rasp of their breathing and the rustle of bedcovers. He retreated to the living room and pulled up his latest book on his e-reader, settling in to wait for the women to wake up and distract him more effectively than the bland storyline could hope to.

Decades later, and Steve still had shit taste in literature.

 

 

Darcy and Jane stumbled out of their bedrooms within ten minutes of each other, Jane with her hair already done up in a ponytail and heading straight back for the office, Darcy in the direction of the kitchen, mumbling something about coffee. Bucky poured her a cup of the pot he’d started when he heard them stirring, and she inhaled deeply before smiling blearily at him and adding an unholy amount of sugar and cream. He wrinkled his nose just watching it happen and sipped his own black.

“Good morning,” she said after her first sip. “Thanks for making coffee. Like, really, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Bucky replied. He watched her savor the smell and taste of her drink, taking in the messy wisps of hair poking out from her bun at all angles and the dark smudges under her eyes. “Did you sleep badly?” he asked.

Darcy laughed. “No, not really, just always tired after traveling and setting up a new lab. Jane gets pretty hyperfocused and then I need to spend a week catching up on my sleep,” she said with a shrug. She lifted her mug and smiled at him. “Waking up to fresh brewed coffee helps.” She took a final sip and topped off her mug with more coffee, sugar and cream before walking towards the office.

Bucky didn’t really know what to do with himself after that. Should he join them in the lab and offer his services again, or would they prefer that he leave them alone? Neither one seemed especially bothered by his appearance, however monstrous it was supposed to be, but he didn’t want to impose or make them uncomfortable.

But he was also lonely, and Steve wasn’t due to visit for another couple of weeks. Maybe he could just sit nearby, and listen to them…because that wouldn’t be creepy at all, a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Sam observed. Bucky told the Sam voice to shut up and followed Darcy towards the office/lab, pausing outside the door much as he’d done the previous afternoon to listen to their conversation.

“Bucky made coffee Jane, do you want some?”

“Hmm? Oh, coffee? Wow, that was quick.”

“Bucky made it for us. Do you want me to bring you some, or do you want to actually eat breakfast today like a normal person?”

Jane scoffed. “Rude, Darcy, I eat breakfast all the time.”

“No, you eat breakfast foods all the time. Rarely do you actually eat breakfast,” Darcy corrected her. “I’m gonna eat breakfast, and then I’ll bring you some coffee, since you’ve already stopped listening to me…” she trailed off, and Bucky beat a hasty retreat back to the kitchen so she wouldn’t catch him spying on them. Again.

She wandered in a moments after he did, and Bucky called upon all his training to look stoic and not like someone who’d just rushed away from a compromising situation. “Back so soon?” he asked.

She laughed. “Yeah, Jane will eat later, but I don’t like to start the day hungry. We brought some stuff, but not much; whatcha got here?” she asked, opening the fridge to scope out its contents.

Bucky lowered his gaze. “Mostly just freezer meals,” he admitted. “I’ve never been much of a cook.”

“Okay, well, I can go on a grocery run tomorrow,” Darcy said, pulling out a carton of eggs. “Just let me know if you have any requests.” She winked at him as she set the eggs on the counter and began rummaging through the cabinets. “Want some eggs?” she offered, emerging from one of the lower cabinets with a skillet.

Bucky tried to pretend that he hadn’t been staring at her shapely backside while she’d been bent over, and decided that lecherous old monsters definitely didn’t deserve home cooked breakfasts. “No, thanks,” he said. He set his coffee mug in the sink, still half full, and retreated to his bedroom on the second floor.

Less than a year away from civilization and interactions with other humans, and he’d regressed back into a socially inept soldier, too quiet, too awkward, too…too hungry to be trusted around other people. He was hungry for Darcy, for the friendship she seemed to be offering him, for more of those soft, gentle touches, and smiles, and jokes…he was too damn lonely, he realized. It was like offering up a decadent chocolate cake to a starving man and telling him to eat slowly, savor, or it would be taken away. If Bucky wasn’t careful, he was gonna end up with frosting smeared all over his face, even worse off than before, because now he’d know what was missing if he scared them away.

He spent the rest of the day in his room.

The next morning, however, when Darcy was getting ready to drive into the nearest town to stock up on supplies, she found a neatly folded note on the counter under a travel cup filled with steaming hot coffee, prepared just the way she liked it. In impeccable cursive writing he’d written, ‘I like pancakes.’ Darcy smiled and pocketed the note while she blew on her coffee before tasting it, looking not at all surprised that he’d already memorized her sugar and cream preferences. Bucky watched her grab the keys to the smaller of the two vehicles they’d arrived in and yell a goodbye to Jane before slamming the door behind her. He sat in the living room and didn’t make it through a single paragraph of his book waiting for her safe return.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated! Sorry, RL got in the way for...um...whoops, a really long time. If anyone is still reading this, hope this doesn't disappoint.

The very next morning Bucky came inside after a morning run to find Darcy dancing around in an apron, singing along to a painfully upbeat song, making pancakes. His heart clenched at the familiar sight and smell of homemade pancakes, and he saw real maple syrup sitting on the table by the plates and cutlery. He blinked back the unexpected tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks and took a deep, calming breath before clearing his throat and stepping heavily to alert Darcy to his presence.

She remained oblivious. Bucky resolved to have a discussion with her about her situational awareness – but after she fed him pancakes. He cleared his throat again and rapped his metal knuckles on the counter.

Darcy spun around and smiled broadly at him. “Hey! Good morning! You have time for a quick shower if you want before breakfast; these first ones are for Jane,” she said.  
He nodded and continued on to get cleaned up and changed, and if he spent a few extra minutes trying to choose between which shirt to wear and debating the comfort of soft pants versus more flattering jeans, he would never admit to it.

(He chose jeans, and a close fitting long sleeved shirt. He was bad enough to look at without flashing his metal arm. It might not be the Hydra original, but very few people actually knew that. He was grateful to T’Challa for not leaving him armless, but it was still difficult to reconcile some days.)

Darcy was still smiling when he returned to the kitchen, though she’d turned down the volume on the music. “Have a seat,” she instructed him, and he watched her flip and butter the pancakes on the griddle. They looked fluffy and perfect, and his mouth started watering. She’d set out glasses and a choice of milk, orange juice, water, and…was that prune juice? There was butter, peanut butter, several different jams and jellies, honey, and the maple syrup he’d noted earlier, as well as fresh berries and fruit. Bucky popped several strawberries into his mouth while he waited.

Darcy set the plate with the stack of pancakes down in front of him with a flourish and a smile, and he pointed to the prune juice. She just laughed. “Well, I know how it is with you old timers,” she teased him, sitting in the chair across with her own plate. “You don’t want to get backed up.”

Bucky just stared at her. Even Steve still hesitated to tease him sometimes, worried that he’d push Bucky too hard or trigger a bad memory. This was…Bucky couldn’t decide if Darcy was the kindest person he’d ever met, or the most oblivious. Maybe she was a little of both.

She squirmed a little in her chair under his scrutiny. “Look, dude, if I offended you…” she started to say.

“No!” he hastened to assure her. “No, I’m not offended, just…surprised. I…it’s…” he laughed bitterly. “I’ve been alone for so long I think I’ve forgotten how to have friends,” he admitted. “I’ve forgotten how to interact with people. Steve doesn’t count.”

Darcy looked like she was going to cry. Bucky cursed his own ineptitude at social interactions, for upsetting this sweet woman who was thus far the best thing that had happened to him since…well, maybe better not to figure that one out.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, holding out his (real) flesh hand towards her as if to stave off her distress. “Like I said, I’m just…I’m sorry. I know I’m awkward, and this,” he gestured at himself to indicate his appearance, “doesn’t help, I’m sure. This breakfast looks like the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time; thank you. That’s what I should have said when I first came in. It’s…it’s really amazing. I haven’t had pancakes in months. Steve and I are terrible cooks,” he admitted.

Darcy sniffled and grinned at him. “Well, lucky for you, I’m an awesome cook. It was mostly in self-defense, since all Jane ever ate was diner food or packaged crap like pop-tarts. She even had a jar of instant coffee,” she said with a shudder.

Bucky smiled. It was feeling less and less rusty the longer Darcy was around. “Probably still better than what we drank overseas,” he pointed out, and she grimaced.

“That’s no excuse,” she maintained, and he shrugged and started doctoring his pancakes.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, until Bucky said, “These are as delicious as they looked. Thank you.”

Darcy looked pleased. “You’re welcome,” she told him. “Honestly it’s nice to cook for someone who notices and appreciates their food. I’m not convinced Jane actually tastes what she eats – which would explain the pop-tarts and instant coffee, but also, kinda discouraging when you’re trying out new recipes.”

He frowned. “She doesn’t appreciate what you do?” he asked.

“Oh, well, yeah, it’s just that she gets really distracted sometimes and all caught up in her theories and data and forgets to eat at all, or sleep, or wash her hair…you know, typical genius stuff.”

Bucky knew his memories were swiss cheese, but the only genius he’d ever known was Howard, and he couldn’t remember the man ever forgetting stuff like that. He said as much, and Darcy snorted. It was completely unladylike, and completely adorable.

“That’s because Howard was even more of an egotistical man-whore than his son,” she pointed out.

Bucky didn’t know what to say to the mention of Tony Stark, one of the bigger elephants in the room, so they sat in awkward silence for several minutes, eating to pretend that it wasn’t awkward.

“There’s more, if you’re still hungry?” Darcy offered finally, scooping the last bite of her pancakes into her mouth.

Bucky looked at his empty plate, and his stomach growled. They both laughed, the tension broken.

“I guess that answers that question,” she said. She stood and took his plate, dropping hers into the sink and rinsing it before pouring more batter out on the griddle. “I made a double batch,” she told him. “I assume you can eat all of them? Otherwise I can just bag them and stick ‘em in the freezer for later.”

Bucky weighed his depression era mentality against his hunger and the offer of fresh, hot, homemade food, and nodded. “I can finish them, if that’s alright,” he said.

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Of course it’s alright; that’s why I offered, dude. There’s plenty of food.” She laughed. “There’s plenty of funding, since Jane signed with SI, plus the grants we had already applied for. Eat as much as you want.”

So Bucky did.

He couldn’t remember ever enjoying a meal more (which maybe wasn’t saying much, since his memories were, as noted, swiss cheese), but it felt so good to relax and just enjoy himself. And Darcy was wonderful – sassy, teasing him as easily as his sisters used to, feeding him a steady supply of cakes until she ran out of batter. She turned one of them into a smiley face using chocolate chips, and discovered Bucky’s sweet tooth as a result.

When she set the last plate down in front of him and moved to the sink, he paused and said, “No, I’ll clean up. You’ve done more than enough.”

She looked surprised, but also pleased. “That’s nice of you,” she said. “I never say no to someone who offers to clean up.”

He shrugged. “Thanks again – this was seriously the best meal I’ve had in…um, a really long time.”

Now she looked upset, and he mentally kicked himself. “I mean, the food was – that is, you’re…uh, just, thanks, and I can wash up. Because you cooked, and everything,” he finished lamely. God, he was pathetic.

Darcy didn’t seem to mind, however; she smiled at him and put everything dirty into the sink, then started cleaning up whatever he wasn’t using. “Well, thanks again for that,” she told him. “I should probably go check on Jane, anyway.” She disappeared down the hall for awhile, and reappeared with Jane’s empty dishes just as Bucky was about to drain the water.

“Oh, shit, dude, you washed everything by hand?” she asked. “Is the dishwasher broken, or is that just an old man thing?”

Bucky was smiling before he even registered the reaction. “Probably just an old man thing, but since I’ve never tested the dishwasher, I can’t say for sure,” he told her.

She laughed. “Fair enough.” She handed him the remaining dishes and surveyed the kitchen with hands on her hips and a pleased, surprised smile on her face. “I think you just got promoted; you are so going to regret this act of kindness,” she warned him. “You might not be able to cook, but you are a much better housekeeper than I am. Everyone is better than Jane,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I think my dog could keep a house cleaner than Jane.”

“You have a dog?” Bucky asked. “I think I…I think I used to wish I could have a dog. We didn’t have the space – or the money to feed one.” 

Darcy shook her head. “Nope, not anymore,” she said. “My aunt had a dog, but it died while I was away at school.” After a pause, she added, “I haven’t been back to her house since.” Bucky, for all he was rusty at human interaction, recognized a dangerous subject when it threatened to bite him and backed off.

“Well, I don’t mind cleaning up,” he offered. “Be glad to, especially if, uh, if you keep sharing your food.” He thought of growing up, how scarce everything had been, of Hydra rations, and suppressed a shudder.

“Dude, you totally have a deal,” she said, and offered her hand to shake. Bucky spent considerably less time awkwardly staring at her hand this time, and managed to shake it and let go without doing anything odd that screamed “damaged goods,” and he congratulated himself. How low he’d fallen, he reflected, that this was an accomplishment again.

Then again, he reasoned, he’d never spent so much time around a woman this beautiful since…well, maybe ever. He could allow himself a little slack.


	5. Chapter Five

The next few days felt like a new life. Bucky was still having nightmares, sure, and he was still awkward and maybe sometimes he still had to retreat to his room for awhile, but having Darcy and Jane in the house…it was a breath of fresh air when he hadn’t even known he’d been suffocating. He’d started helping Darcy with the cooking so he could learn how, and sitting with the women in the office while they set up their tests and reviewed data, and once at night they’d all sat in the living room together drinking hot cocoa while he let their conversation just wash over him. It was so peaceful it was almost too much.

The peace effectively ended once Jane’s natural scientific curiosity got ahold of his curse.

“So how does it work, exactly?” she wondered out loud while they were eating dinner sometime into their second week. Bucky was surprised, but he remembered Darcy saying something about hyper focus and a whole week before and after being especially exhausting whenever they moved lab spaces.

He kept his gaze on his plate and said, “The, uh, the witch said that anyone who didn’t already know me would see me for what I really am, the true me that I see in the mirror. No one Steve could find had any solution other than the witch’s out clause – someone has to see past the spell in order to break it.”

“Not even Wanda?” Darcy asked. “I mean, I know she can make people see things…that’s why Thor’s off world right now, you know; she showed him some sort of freaky vision that spooked him and he took off to ‘seek out answers,’” she said, imitating the big man’s booming voice and formal speech pattern. Bucky laughed, and she grinned. It was quite the triumph to get Bucky to smile, much less laugh; she savored it every time it happened like a personal victory.

But his laughter faded into a frown. “No, she couldn’t lift the curse,” he said. “She, uh, she tried, but…”

Darcy just nodded.

But Jane wasn’t done asking questions. “Have they tried taking photographs? Doing comparison sketches? Any kind of resonance imaging?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, Steve and Sam tried taking photos of me, but…they never turned out. Just blurry, or too dark, or something; there was always something wrong with the image. And the same problem with sketch artists they hired; everyone drew something different, and it was never clear enough to really tell what they were even seeing. They just…were horrified, but in a vague sort of way, I guess.”

He could feel his shoulders hunching in towards his chest as if making himself smaller would protect him. Or them. He still couldn’t believe they hadn’t run away that first day. That they were even still around was a gift, and he didn’t want to remind them of why they shouldn’t still be there.

“Hey Jane, when will the doohickey be done recalibrating?” Darcy asked, redirecting the conversation and eliciting a long explanation of things more complex than Bucky had ever dreamed possible in a machine, back when a flying car seemed like science fiction.

Then again, here in the future everyone still drove on the ground, but the quinjets…those were pretty cool. Hell, Bucky himself was science fiction.

He was grateful to Darcy for distracting her friend, and even more grateful that she didn’t call him out for his brooding through the rest of their meal.

After the dishes were washed and put away (there was no such thing as “leftovers” when you were feeding a super soldier), Jane muttered something about a calculation she wanted to finish, and Darcy and Bucky moved to their favorite plush, extra deep sofa.

He took a few deep, calming breaths, counting the seconds in, holding, out, and hold again, before he spoke.

“So what…what do you see?” he asked.

“When I look at you, you mean? You can’t see it?” Darcy asked, sitting up and looking surprised.

Bucky shook his head. “No. I mean, I know I see a monster when I look in the mirror, but that’s because I can see what I’ve done…I know, uh, know what I’m capable of, the…the crimes I’ve committed. I don’t know how that translates to other people’s perceptions. When the witch cursed me, she just said that anyone who hadn’t met me before would see the monster that I do, see me for what I really am.”

“Oh, Bucky,” Darcy said, and there was such compassion in her voice and such gentleness in her hand on his cheek that Bucky clenched his jaw against the tears that threatened. “You’re not a monster. The things that Hydra made you do are not your fault. They’re not.”

Bucky held his breath, but her expression didn’t change, so he blew it out slowly. It didn’t count. It was one of the most incredible thing anyone had ever said to him, and the look in her eyes would sustain his lonely soul for a long time, along with the sensory memory of her touch, but he was still cursed. Still a monster, whatever she said.

Now she looked confused. “So, wait; what is that I’m supposed to see?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, you tell me,” he said. “That’s why I asked; I can’t see anything different in the mirror, and Steve and Sam can’t tell the difference ‘cause the witch’s curse only affected people who’d never met me before – like you and Jane.”

“So, you should look…what? Monstrous? Like with horns or whatever?”

He shrugged again, frustrated with her continued questions. “That’s why I asked, Darcy; I don’t know. It’s not like the few people who saw me after the curse went into effect stuck around to chat about my new appearance. They pretty much screamed and ran away, like any smart person would do.”

“Hey!” she objected, and punched his arm. It was his flesh arm, but she still shook out her hand and made a face. “Ow. I am a very smart person, I’ll have you know! You think any old dummy could keep up with Jane this long?”

He shook his head. “No. I know, doll; I was just teasing.”

She nodded emphatically. “Damn straight you were,” she said, but he knew there was a seed of insecurity behind her avowal.

Bucky hesitantly lifted his arm and draped it lightly over her shoulders in an embrace. “It takes someone more than just smart to keep up with someone like Jane,” he told her. “It takes common sense, which is a hell of a lot more rare these days. Does she know how lucky she is to have you?” he asked. It was supposed to be teasing, a lighthearted question to lift her spirits and distract her from the more depressing conversation about his enduring curse, but it came out wistful. He hoped she couldn’t hear the longing in his voice, still marveling that she allowed him such proximity.

Darcy tossed her hair affectedly and sniffed. “Probably not,” she said. “It takes someone truly special to appreciate the fullness of my awesome. Jane’s too busy staring at stars to see the pop-tart under her nose most days,” she finished with an affectionate laugh, losing the affected air. “But I love her like a sister, and I’ll stick with her.”

“I know,” Bucky replied, and this time he knew she could hear the wistfulness in his voice, because she leaned into him and rested her head against his chest. His breath caught at the simple, trusting gesture, so natural it made him ache. He gently squeezed her with the arm still draped around her shoulders, and wished he could be certain that he would never, ever forget this moment.


	6. Chapter Six

Only a few days after their conversation on the extra deep comfy couch, which had ended with them just sitting in silence, Darcy’s head still resting on his chest until she fell asleep and he carried her to bed, Steve showed up.

Jane didn’t even notice he’d arrived until she wandered out to the table for lunch, head buried in her notebook, and they both reached for the bread at the same time.

“Sorry, Bucky,” she said, just as Steve said, “Sorry, Dr. Foster.”

Jane looked up and scrunched her nose. “Steve Rogers?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Landed this morning,” he told her, straight faced even though Darcy was pretty sure she could see a little crinkle in the corners of his eyes. He had been gracious about being ignored when he’d said hi to the astrophysicist upon arrival. Jane just nodded and grabbed her bread.

Steve and Bucky picked up their conversation as though the interruption hadn’t occurred, and Darcy smiled to herself. Geniuses were so cute.

Steve winked at her when he saw her expression, and Bucky smiled at her when their eyes met over the pot of spaghetti, and she smiled back. Super soldiers were pretty cute, too.

 

Having Steve around meant that Bucky spent less time in the lab watching them work and letting Darcy chatter at him, and she was surprised at how much she missed him that day. Even Jane noticed, and said something about it being quieter than usual with a little frown as though she missed the background noise of their conversations.

Bucky wanted to show off his new cooking skills for his friend, so Darcy was relegated to observer during the dinner prep, watching with pride as her new friend navigated the kitchen with ease, while her oldest friend leaned against her and nursed her glass of wine, and Bucky’s oldest friend teased him and made unhelpful suggestions. It was the best time she could remember having for a long while.

Dinner tasted almost perfect; even super soldier noses couldn’t smell something burning until it was already, y’know, burning.

When they were all full and had moved to the couches to polish off their second bottle of wine, lazing in various positions of comfort – Jane tucked into the corner with her feet curled under her, Steve leaning back with his long arms stretched out along the back support, Darcy and Bucky sharing another couch, sitting next to each other and each leaning into the other’s space – silence reigned for several long minutes while everyone sipped their wine and enjoyed the atmosphere of calm and friendship.

In retrospect, Darcy should have cut Jane off after the second glass of wine.

“Le’ss take a photo!” she cried, slamming her empty wine glass down on the coffee table and fumbling for her phone. “I wanna show it to Thor.”

Darcy winced. This was the start of a painful, and cyclical, conversation.

“Y’know…when he ge’ss back,” Jane clarified, dropping on to the couch next to Darcy with an ungraceful whoosh. She motioned Steve over with wide sloppy gestures and only missed smacking Barnes in the face by virtue of his super-soldier reflexes.

“Sure, Jane,” she agreed, and plastered a smile on for the selfie camera. She made a wide eyed face of stern command at the two men that promised swift and terrible retribution if they didn’t cooperate, and even Bucky gave her a slow nod of assent. Jane spent several minutes arranging them all on the couch so everyone’s face was in frame, and made several attempts before she could hold her hand steady enough to snap it at the right moment. She sent it to all of them and then went to the kitchen for more wine.

It was a terrible photo. Darcy looked manic, Steve confused, Jane sloppy, and Bucky…

“Hey,” Darcy said, leaning into his side in lieu of a nudge, “you showed up pretty well in this picture. I thought you said cameras sort of blurred you out?”

“What!” Steve lunged for her phone from Bucky’s other side, and Darcy startled and let out a yelp. Bucky’s metal arm was suddenly between them hauling the other super soldier away from her even as he turned his body to protect her with his bulk.

“Um, yeah, here,” Darcy offered, holding the phone out from behind the broad back blocking her view of the two men’s faces. “I mean, maybe it only affects photos taken by people who knew him before? Magic is weird.”

“Bucky…” Steve’s voice sounded like he was being strangled.

“Yeah,” was the only reply, in a soft tone. “I…Doll, I really gotta know, what do you see when you look at me?” Bucky asked.

Darcy waited for him to turn around, but he remained frozen with his back to her. She laid a hand on his shoulder and pulled, but it was like pulling against a brick wall. “Bucky,” she said, continuing to put gentle pressure on his shoulder, “Bucky, turn around. Look at me.”

He did, slowly, and the expression on his face was heartbreaking – hope burned in his eyes like – no, those were actual tears, and his jaw was clenched so tightly Darcy worried he’d crack a tooth.

“I see…oh god, this is so humiliating,” Darcy cut herself off, burying her face in her hands. She took a deep breath and shook her hands out like she was flicking bad energy from her fingertips and started again. “Okay, so everyone who looks at you sees something monstrous, right? I, uh, there was this old man, this angry man, who panhandled in my neighborhood growing up. He was homeless, and probably mentally ill and just in need of help, but he was really scary to all us school kids, and the rumors and stories that went around about him made everything worse. So, yeah, to me you kinda just look like a homeless bum. Sorry.”

Both men were staring at her with blank faces, and in the ensuing silence Darcy could hear the soft sounds of Jane weeping over her phone and the undelivered texts she was attempting to drunk-text Thor. Darcy hoped he got a new number when he finally settled on Midgard again, or he’d have an onslaught of such messages to wade through on his return.

“Darcy,” Steve said, “Bucky does look like a homeless bum. Sam used to tease him about it.”

Bucky winced. “I…I couldn’t let anyone that close with something sharp,” he admitted. “Not while I was sitting in a chair. So I never got a haircut. Or a shave.”

Now Steve winced. The amount of man pain between the two of them was enough to have Hollywood salivating and making billions for decades, Darcy decided. Then she processed what they’d just told her.

“Wait, you mean Bucky really does just have a wild beard and long hair? I’m not a terrible person for being afraid of an old homeless guy?” Darcy really needed Steve to spell this out for her, so that she could start feeling guilty for a whole new set of reasons.

Steve was smiling so hard she wondered if it was possible to crack your own jaw that way. “I think you broke the curse, Darcy,” he said. “This photo is a clear picture of Bucky, and no other attempt we’ve made has looked like this. What happened when you first got here? What did he look like?”

Darcy scrunched her face up and tried to remember their first encounter. “Honestly, I don’t think I saw much of him besides a blur of ah! potential bad guy! and then the metal arm, when Jane tased him,” she recounted.

“So you knew who he was when you first looked at him?” Steve pressed.

“Yeah, the first time I got a good look at him,” she confirmed. “I recognized the arm.”

Bucky hunched his shoulders. “I’m sorry that I frightened you guys,” he apologized.

Darcy flapped a hand at him. “Nonsense, we scared you just as bad,” she countered, “plus you were the one that got tased. Sorry about that again, too.”

Steve laughed. “So you weren’t afraid of him after you realized who he was?” he asked. “You recognized him and stopped being scared, and that’s when you first saw him?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said with a shrug. Jane was still crying in the kitchen, and Darcy needed to go to her, needed to take away the phone, needed to comfort her and help her to bed. But this was important, too – Bucky was also important to her, had taken up a special place in her heart right next to her adopted sister, and this was huge for him. He could rejoin society if what Steve suspected was true.

Oh. He would be leaving, she realized with a sinking sensation in her stomach. He would almost certainly go home with Steve, maybe even the next day, to confirm that the curse was broken. A quiet lab would be the new normal (again), the absence of his presence while she baked or cooked or listened to music…she’d have to get used to it.

Darcy suddenly felt a little too warm, like she’d chugged a glass of wine, but the opposite of relaxed, so she kinda wanted to.

“Bucky,” she said, locking gazes with him, “I meant what I said a few nights ago. You are not a monster. You are a very brave, good man who had terrible things done to him, and who was tortured and used to do terrible things. That’s not something you need to bear the guilt for – even though it probably means you’ll need a shit ton of therapy for, like, the rest of your life. But Jane is crying and she needs to go to bed and stop trying to send text messages to an alien who’s not even on this planet right now, and I need to go to her. Celebrate with your best friend and I’ll catch up with you later.” She hugged him, quick and strong and fierce, and then stood, leaving the two men on the couch to notify whoever needed to know that Bucky would be coming back with Steve, and found Jane.

She took the phone away from the petite woman and helped her to her room, made sure she took her jeans and her bra off before crawling under the covers, and made her drink a glass of water before turning off the light, leaving some pills and another full glass next to the bed for the next morning.

The super soldiers were still sitting on the couch an hour later when she returned with her own glass of water, but they stood when she entered the room, like the chivalrous old fossils they were.

“It’s broken,” Bucky told her, smiling so widely she was now doubly concerned re: can you crack or otherwise damage your own jaw from smiling too hard? He swooped her up into a hug that lifted her off her feet and splashed water over her arm. She felt Steve take the glass so she could wrap her own arms around Bucky.

“You saw me,” he whispered against her ear. “Thank you, Darcy; you can’t ever know how much this means, what you did for me.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’m sorry I was too stupid to realize sooner, and even sorrier that people are so shitty it took this long. I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through, Bucky; you deserve only good things.”

He squeezed her gently and set her down. “Pretty sure you’ve got the wrong end of it, Doll, but I’m glad you do,” he said. “Thank you.”


End file.
